As tensions between the US and North Korea heighten, US citizens boarded planes from Pyongyang to Beijing yesterday ahead of today’s travel ban.

The ban was put in place following the death of Otto Warmbier, a US student sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour in North Korea for trying to steal a hotel sign. Mr Warmbier was returned to the US in June in a coma having suffered severe neurological damage from an unknown cause and died shortly afterwards.

On Wednesday US President Donald Trump seemed to contradict his top cabinet officials by declaring on Twitter that 25 years of negotiations with Pyongyang had gone nowhere, adding: “Talking is not the answer.”

On Wednesday Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said Beijing was implementing UN sanctions but also pushing for a return to talks on de-nuclearising the Korean peninsula.

“China is opposed to any unilateral sanction or long-arm jurisdiction in accordance with one country’s domestic law,” she warned.